


Soulmate Marks: Coffee

by Crack_Pair_King



Series: Soulmate Marks: a Joker and a Panther [3]
Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, ShuAnn Week 2019, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-02 16:45:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19445509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crack_Pair_King/pseuds/Crack_Pair_King
Summary: An afternoon at LeBlanc leaves Sojiro with questions and Takemi with answers.





	Soulmate Marks: Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> Part 3 of 7 for ShuAnn Week
> 
> This one ended up being much more about how this whole situation looks from an outsider's perspective, but I think that can be valuable too. Of course, it also features our favorite dorks being dorks about each other while trying to drink their very sophisticated coffee.

"Whyyyyyyy do we have to study?"

Ann drew out the question as she plopped into their booth. The one closest to both the backstairs and bathroom. The least desirable seating location had quickly become the Phantom Thieves' table.

The other Phantom Thief set out his materials while Ann vented her frustration in a fit of drama.

If she could only achieve this all the time, Ren mused, she'd win more parts than Rise Kujikawa.

"Because finals exist between here and summer." Ren said. Then he paused a beat, opened his math textbook, and said almost-casually, "Miss Academic Pillow Princess."

Ann shot him a look of laced with fire. Carmen echoed the taunt throughout the back of Ann's mind. It had, in fact, been Carmen's taunt first. Ann couldn't believe Ren was reusing Carmen's insult.

Absently Ann felt her hand rub against the mark on her sternum. A deck of cards fanned out in a perfect circle. The Joker card dead center. A Joker with Ren's mask and bright red gloves and increasingly iconic coat. She sighed and pulled out her math book even as Ren scratched an itch on his chest.

"Let's get this over with."

It wasn't too long after that Sojiro brought the pair cups of coffee. Ann's doctored with sugar, Ren's unaltered. He nodded gruffly at their thanks, and stepped back towards the counter. He turned around just in time to catch first one, then the other, rub at the center of their chests. Right at where, he'd heard, a person's soulmark sat if they had one.

Sojiro knew from Wakaba it was a reflex of some sort. It was something people didn't used to do. Back before the mid-90s and the shit that led him and Wakaba to cross paths. These two, and even the doctor sitting in her booth, were all born after that change.

Sojiro remembered when the percentage of people without "soulmarks" was everyone. Not like nowadays, where three out of ten of people spent their lives focused on some random inkspot on their chest. The rest, of course, bitched about not having one.

He'd never quite figured out what that motion was about. Wakaba's explanations always veered into her research and the overlaps between the two issues.

But if he was right in his suspicions, then the boy had either the best or worst luck in history. Because if Sojiro was right the boy had come to Tokyo on probation and found himself a soulmate. It was, quite easily, the worst possible time in the boy's life to meet potentially the most important person of the rest of his life. But, from where Sojiro was sitting, the kid found one hell of a woman and a match in his soulmate.

For a moment, Boss indulged himself, and bitched about being one of the majority who were 'unmarked'. Who would never know if they were tripping over themselves because of the weird yet wonderful connection of soulmates, or because they were a klutz.

"So, English next?" Ann asked hopefully. Ren begged off to make more coffee for them both first. Ann agreed, standing up to follow Ren over to the counter. Leaning against it, she watched him work.

Ren felt Phoenix preen at his soulmark.

Whether this could ever be more than a dream was a future thing. Right now, he had coffee to make and a beautiful girl watching him work. Life was pretty good if you looked at it that way. As the beans ground, he absently rubbed at his soulmark. A second later, Ren found something on the far wall fascinating as Ann reached between her breasts to, he supposed, adjust her bra.

"So what's next, Mr. Angry and Angsty?"

Ren shot her a dark look before taking a sip of equally dark coffee. "For that, you can doctor it yourself. And history's next."

"Uuuugh." Ann let her head fall forward for a second, even as she reached blindly for the sugar.

A soft clunk. The sugar appeared at the edge of her sight.

On the other side from her questing arm.

Ann deliberately reached with her questing arm to grab the sugar. Then, with great dignity, she began to sweeten her coffee.

Dr. Tae Takemi watched the couple settle back into the far booth, intrigued and amused. She'd heard of this variant, but she'd never seen it in perso- and there it was again. Dr. Takemi spotted the blond's hand engage in a marksoothing reflex. Moments later, her little guinea pig did the same.

The classic, so far as the term went here, sign of a bilateral entrenchment.

Yet they didn't act like a bilaterally entrenched pair. They were too remote with one another, for one, sitting on opposite sides of the booth when they could easily justify sharing one side. No grounding touches even when they'd been standing facing one another at the counter. Even her little guinea pig's quiet chivalry in not watching the blonde "adjust herself" was a tell. Bilaterally entrenched pairs, more often than not, got offended when their partner didn't look.

As far as Dr. Takemi could tell, everything pointed to an _unwitting_ bilateral entrenchment. That in mind, she examined her little guinea pig's study date more closely.

The girl had fire to her. The furious gaze she aimed at the screen, always for the length of any report on the ongoing Kamoshida case, made that clear. It also had certain implications, and Tae tried not to think too hard about them at that moment. Instead she focused on her recollections of the girl. Graceful in motion, particularly for the physically awkward teenage years.

It wasn't the first time Takemi had seen the blonde with her guinea pig. Every time the girl had moved with fluidity. A model or actress, Takemi had originally guessed. Now though, the girl was visibly putting on muscle. Especially in the legs.

If Takemi had to guess, this girl was the red panther wreathed in flame whose brand her little guinea pig wore. The doctor made a note to try and get the girl's contact details. Better to have them in case something happened with her little guinea pig during their clinical trials.

She looked over at Sojiro, who's brow was knit in confusion before she spoke and gave him something to do.

"Boss, can I get another cup?"

"Sure."

Tae grinned as she saw his gaze flicker to the pair in their corner. She knew what was coming. Sojiro was far from the only parent or guardian who predated The Grand Marking and hadn't quite caught up with the changes. She just wasn't sure how much she'd need to explain.

"Mind if I ask you a question?"

She nodded and braced for what promised to be an awkward conversation with the guardian of her little guinea pig. But she considered it repaying the favor he'd done her. Her practice's business was booming since he'd put her on the spot. And since someone would need to tell Sojiro eventually, might as well be a doctor and now. After all, marksoothing only occurred as a result of one condition.

Those two were soulbound to one another and, barring anything truly horrific, they were staying that way.

**Author's Note:**

> To clarify: Takemi's utilizing in-setting medical terminology while observing the pair because that's her training. What she's saying is they show every sign of being soulmates who've gone from being potential to being bound and committed soulmates. But they're also completely unaware they've made the jump into a bound and committed soulmating.
> 
> "They're both dorks-in-love who don't realize their partner is as much a dork-in-love as they themselves are," is a functional translation of Takemi's diagnosis.


End file.
